The next morning...

I am awake now, having gotten up at 8am having played the Hoy until 1:30am. By the time I was unwound it was closer to 2:30am. Then there was the power outage, the plumber, and its raining. Gez.

I got some good One Minute Mystery hands last night, but I really got some great experience in 2 regards.

The first was my final table play. I am ALWAYS too loose at the final table, using aggression to Always Be Closing. Aggression + lack of thought = Bubble. Last night, after losing my chip lead and making a questionable call of an all-in with A7s (only to see AJ), I tightened it down still managed a few steals and finished 2nd.

The second was taking the bully on my right for a ride on the roller coaster of variance. The best part was that he would win chips, then eventually pass them down to me. Why he even played a hand with me I will never know. One hand, I flopped an Ace and let him bet on every street and "just walked the dog down to the river". He doubled me up twice last night. The second time he went out with the bathwater.

At the end, my fate was determined on a board of 2567. I had A5, and my opponent pushed me all in. After MUCH thought, I folded. He said he had 83 when it was over. Makes sense, but I then made a mistake folding there. I was fooled by his flop bet I think, and if I bet, I was confused by his call. I will need to go replay that hand again...

I am reading the new FT strategy guide and I must say that some pros live in their own world. Like the Fergeson "post" about always bettin the same up front. Can't agree (assumes a tight tight pro-level table). But I did like his discussion on how he determines his post-flop bet. He does it by estiamteing "the outs his opponents would have" based on the board. The MORE outs they have, the LARGER (not smaller) the bet he makes. BUT, he assumes HEADS UP play on the flop. (Thus the reason he is always raising or folding pre-flop). This just wont mesh enough with my style to use on every pot I play, but I love it as a heads-up methodology.

The next "post" on "leverage" is funny to read right after the above, since there are some conflicts. Lederer loves to have a second barrel pointed at you (similar in style to blogger doubleas) but is based more on position that outs. Lederer's strategy of leverages pressure works much better from position (or so I believe). He likes to rely on the "amount of the reraise" that has to be made to determine the outcome of the hand. His 3-10-X rule. I need to finish readying it before I form a final opinion, but I find it very similar to "creating pressure points", but explained in a more roundabout way. -The big thing is not not try to blow people off the hand post-flop, but rather bet in a way that they are making the maximum mistake if they are calling from behind. This is done with proper bet sizing based on stack sizes and the pot size (if you are deep stacked). He assumes it is rare for a player with a better hand to "walk the dog". Hmmm.